First Minecraft 1.6.4 Feed the Beast modpacks appear on the horizon

Minecraft is the only game I’ve played in which use of back versions isn’t just fully supported, but expected – replete with a drop down menu in the launcher. That’s because it has to be: despite complaints to the contrary, Minecraft’s post-release development has accelerated to the point that its most popular community creators can’t keep up.

So it is that as the vanilla game nears its 1.7.3 release, one of the game’s most popular modpacks and its constituent parts are just now approaching 1.6.4.

During a Minecon segment in which the Minecraft team recounted their work over the past year, lead developer Jeb briefly apologised to mod makers for 1.6.4 – an update that shifted about enough of the backend to make life difficult for the community.

One of the first major packs to catch up is Feed the Beast’s Horizons – a strange and varied bundle which incorporates mods for expanded farming, computer networks and hard drives, mob-inherited special abilities, magic spells and better storage by default, among much more.

Magic Farm, which really puts the Capital Ssss in Survival, is due in the next two days as well. Magic World 2 and Tech World 2, meanwhile, which turn Minecraft’s rules topsy-turvy and offer sprawling factory complexes respectfully, are ETA’d for 72 hours.

The modders are recommending servers with 3GB RAM, which our Pete reckons is a bit steep – but a Lite version will be released soon for people with smaller servers. Which pack are you holding out for?